“While the men prepared to replace the first flag, I was able to position myself for a picture, the elements of which were composed by the men themselves, and the wind, weather, midday lighting, and the luck of timing.” - Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press

At the end of the war in Western Europe, with the war in the Pacific still going strong, America was a tired country that needed a patriotic jolt. You can only position yourself so well: good photographer, heroic moment of reprieve amidst the horrific fighting, camera crew tailing the soldiers, hoping to capture even the slightest sense of what the sons and brothers of the nation were fighting for. But all the preparedness in the world can’t bank on the beauty of luck. 

This is the story of the luckiest snapshot ever taken.

See the images.

Music used:

The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"

The Blue Dot Sessions, “Sunday Lights,” “Cherry Heath,” “Curious Kepler,” “Arlan Vale,” “Dreadnaut Files,” “Silent Ocean,” “Chromium Blush,” “Mencher and Polk,” “The Silver Hatch,” “10c Coffee”

Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”

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"Art isn't what you see. It's what you help others see." - Edgar Degas | "Close your eyes/sometimes it helps." - Rhianna

A little over ten years ago, on May 4th, 2016, I swallowed hard and hit publish on my very first episode of The Lonely Palette. I had the domain, I had the website, I had a mic and closet, and I had a dream. Public radio, someday, but for now, speak the art history lecture I'd always wanted to hear in school, the one that would remind people that artists were human beings too, and that art history and art museums weren't only for the snootiest amongst us. That first episode led to a second, and a third, and here I am, a decade later, millions of downloads under my belt, feeling that same pressure, curiosity, excitement, dread, and magic, every single day.

Milestones are both arbitrary and quite useful. It matters to stop, look around, look back. And it feels good to talk, and to be listened to. So I asked my friend and colleague, Julie Shapiro, the best listener in the biz, to sit down with me and talk about art, craft, the changing industry, failure, and success. Ten years of making a show entirely by myself - and entirely for the love of it. Enjoy.

Music used:

The Blue Dot Sessions, "Helado," "Red City Theme," "Paper Feather"

Haas, Kowert, Tice, "The Decade"

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"The deeper you go, the less indulgent it will be.” - Helena's stickie note

Helena De Groot is an audio maker, but, really, she’s an audio artist. Her series, Creation Myth, just dropped in full as part of the CBC’s show, Personally. Personally is about the most personal experiences that audio makers that probe within themselves, laying themselves bare, for our benefit, as the best memoirs do.

Creation Myth is, ostensibly, about the question whether or not to have kids. But as you’ll hear, both in listening to the series, and to my conversation with Helena today, it’s about craft and memoir, parenting yourself and parenting others, care and compassion. It’s a masterclass in the creative process itself - that is, creating. Creating life, both your own and another person’s. Creating stories. And creating art that reaches people, sometimes in surprising places.

Music used:

The Blue Dot Sessions, "Aourourou," "Lina My Queen," "On Top of It"

Episode webpage

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Earlier this year, I had a really, really great conversation with Dr. Lara Ayad, host of the podcast The Cheeky Scholar - and I'm proud to share it today. We cast our net really wide, talking at first about the role of artists in society, my favorite museums, but then we got into it. We got into it. Because Lara and I are both, in the parlance of the moment, free speech bros. And if you’re going to be a good artist, or a good art critic, you can’t be afraid of censorship, and you sure as hell can’t practice it. 

Lara and I talk everything from Anselm Kiefer to Dr. Seuss, and what we came to realize is this: you have to open your mouth. You have to look at world with open eyes and an open mind. And nothing shuts all those things – mouth, eyes, and mind – more than fear. Fear of offending. Fear of saying the wrong thing even when you’re trying to say the right thing. Or fear that full-on disagreeing will put the whole of your values, your entire moral compass, in question. What will people think of me? Am I still allowed in the club? Am I still a good person? 

Full disclosure: it’s this fear, and these questions, that made me almost not share this conversation. But that’s nuts. And when you listen, you’ll hear why. Freedom of speech is one of the most foundational tenets we have in a liberal society – and this has always been the case, regardless of who had the cultural power to cancel whom.

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It's September, and time to get back to work. That means defending public radio against federal defunding, exploring its core values, and taking an honest look at how we got here. 

I'm proud to share this conversation between my Hub & Spoke colleague Erica Heilman, host of the exquisite and unflinching Rumble Strip, and her buddy Jay Allison, founder of Transom, producer of The Moth Radio Hour, and generally one of the most stalwart producers in the industry, about why public radio matters.

Episode webpage.

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"You don't go look at a Rothko; you go inside a Rothko." - Claire, visitor, National Gallery of Art

Modern art. Two little words that strike so much fear in the heart of the average museum goer. When you're used to straightforward, legible paintings and sculptures, Modernism can be pretty destabilizing. Pretty weird. Canvases are now spattered with paint, or lined with grids, or barely containing the shapes that seem to want to float away. A car tire is cut apart and reassembled. A giant mobile floats in the air, catching the breeze. 

And it's natural to ask, well, what does this mean? What is this piece about? How did I just go from Post-Impressionism to Fauvism to Cubism to Futurism, when the subject matter of these paintings all kind of look similarly shattered and rebuilt and hastily glued back together again? How could I ever understand the nuances of this stuff without a graduate degree? 

But I promise you, you can.

Learn more.

See the images.

Music Used:

The Blue Dot Session, “Tall Harvey,” “Highway 430,” “Ranch Hand,” “Cornicob,” “The Melt,” “A Common Pause,” “Within the Garden Walls,” “Basketliner”

"Questions and the search for answers, and the appreciation of beauty, and then wanting to share it with other people, to go look at it closely together. Then you realize you've got something that can feed you for the rest of your life as a career." - Emily Pegues, curator, National Gallery of Art.

Museum curators are an intimidating species. Those experts with their degrees. How could they possibly remember what it was like to walk into a museum for the first time and feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of history on display? How could they imagine what it’s like to be a visitor who doesn’t care about a landscape with cows? After all, we’re not born knowing the stories these paintings tell, or how to seek them out.

In the second episode in our series, we’re going to explore how a long look into an artwork can inadvertently engage another sense: hearing. Hearing the stories that a painting can tell. And the curators at the National Gallery are here to help. Help put us in the best possible position to receive these stories; help us listen to what these paintings are saying to us. And how to imagine these stories moving through the centuries, embracing us the way they once embraced them for the first time, and making them want to do what they do.

Learn more.

See the images.

Music Used:

The Blue Dot Sessions, “Gentle Son,” “Pinky,” “Origami Guitar,” “Arizona Moon,” “Tangeudo,” “The Melt,” “Lina My Queen,” “Brer Rhetta,” “Georgia Overdrive”

"There are different levels of looking. And it's exciting to bring people to the different levels."  - Estelle Quain, docent, National Gallery of Art

How do YOU feel when you walk into an art museum? Is it familiar? Intimidating? Do you have a guard trying to shush you, or an overly-enthusiastic friend trying to tell you what to like? Are you joyful? Are you sad? Are you… bored?

You’re not alone. Whether it’s your first time in an art museum or your 10,000th, everyone’s going to respond differently. That’s why we made this podcast.

In June of 2024, I was honored to be the Storyteller-in-Residence at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I spent a week in the museum talking to and recording as many people as I could: curators, museum staff, visitors. We talked about what brought them to the museum, and what keeps them there. We talked about what makes the museum experience transcendent, and, bluntly, what can get in the way of that - what stands in the way of connecting with an artwork, what makes them feel like they never learned the secret knock to access this world. After all, in order to make a space inviting, you have to understand why some people can feel left out.

In this three-part series, a collaboration between the National Gallery of Art and The Lonely Palette, we’re going to explore the idea of what it means to open yourself up to an art museum, one artwork, or conversation, at a time. And how the tools to do this have been here for you all along, literally in plain sight, just waiting for you.

Today, in the first episode of our series, I talked to various museum staff about preconceived notions of art that visitors bring with them to the museum. We discussed how their jobs are to meet visitors where they’re at, and to encourage them to go further. To look longer.

Learn more.

See the images.

Music Used:

The Blue Dot Sessions, “Brer Rhetta,” “Greylock,” “Alustrat,” Vela Vela,” “Caprese,” “Setting Pace,” “Our Fingers Cold”

“I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.” - Norman Rockwell

Whether arguing for soft versus hard taco shells or the Neo-Nazi right to march in Skokie, freedom of speech is a fundamental right we all enjoy as Americans. But it turns out that telling people that is pretty complicated, actually. Thank goodness we have Norman Rockwell, virtuosic photorealistic painter and America's crown prince of nostalgia, to help us understand our fundamental freedoms from the intimacy of the magazines fanned across the coffee tables inside our homes.

See the images.

Music used:

The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen"

The Blue Dot Sessions, “The Zeppelin,” “Lord Weasel,” “No Smoking,” “Transeless,” “Silver Lanyard,” “Ice Tumbler,” “Sino de Cobre,” “Georgia Overdrive,” “The Consulate”

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"Walter, let's go for a walk."  - Judith Wechsler, in the arcades of Paris.

Professor Judith Wechsler is an art historian, filmmaker, writer, researcher, Francophile, and leading expert on Paul Cezanne and Honoré Daumier. She’s the daughter of a major religious philosopher. Her resume reads like a who’s who of 20th century art historians – Meyer Shapiro, Linda Nochlin, Leo Steinberg, Gershom Sholem. Her films tell the story of 20th century Europe, image by image.

She was also my grad school advisor. And she’s now a dear friend. Hers is the voice that lingers in my head, reminding me to show my work. Her background in dance and filmmaking speak to someone who, like me, sees art and art history as something that can be understood not just academically, but creatively, and interpreted creatively. You just need to make sure there’s a net below that cliff to catch you.

We all have a mentor, and Judith is mine. This conversation is deeply personal. It’s the story of a student, and her teacher, and the questions and answers that craft our journeys.

Episode webpage

Music used:

The Blue Dot Sessions, "A Little Powder," "Basketliner"

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